The Autumn of Life II: Your Pursuit Isn’t Over

Welcome to the Whole Council Podcast. I'm Jon Snyder, and we are continuing our short series.

It's going to be six episodes from a book called Thoughts on Religious Experience by Archibald Alexander, a theologian, the president of Princeton Seminary, and a pastor from around 1800 -1850, his adult life.

And we talked about him in the previous episode and gave a quick biographical sketch, so we're gonna just jump in to some of his writings from this book, and we're gonna limit ourselves to an unusual topic.

Pastoral advice for elderly Christians. He calls it five letters to the aged, five letters to older believers.

So I don't know who an older believer is. I mean, if you go to a church and say, we're gonna have a meeting for old people,

I'm not sure who will show up. But so we might think in our mind, those who are retirement age and up, and certainly that doesn't mean that you are, you know, homebound and decrepit, but perhaps the normal rhythm of life with work and kids, that's kind of been set aside.

And as a believer, in this last, you know, this last period of living for Christ on earth, there are some unusual hurdles.

It doesn't get easier, and Archibald Alexander writes as a pastor to those in his church in this age group with some warnings and some very helpful advice.

So we're going to look at a letter each podcast, and they're not very long, they're only about three pages long, so we're gonna try to keep the podcasts succinct.

Now, if you joined us for our first episode in this series, you know that we're doing a giveaway of a book that describes this same period in the early

American history called Revival and Revivalism by Ian Murray, and it's put out by Banner of Truth.

It is the single most significant book that I know of, dealing with the historical and theological shifts that occurred from the time of Jonathan Edwards, you know, until 1850s.

And really, it explains how we move from great awakening views of God, conversion, church,

Christian life, to where we're at today. And so we mentioned that as a giveaway last week, and at the end of this series, we're going to do another giveaway, and that is this book,

Thoughts on Religious Experience by Archibald Alexander, and it has many short chapters, and these all deal with areas of the

Christian life, the experiential side. How do I apply these truths? How do we live on Christ?

Well, I want us to look at the first letter, and as I mentioned, there are just five.

Letter one is kind of an introduction to what he wants to say to elderly believers, and this is what he says.

This is the opening line. The autumn of our life has actually arrived.

The scenes of our youth have fled forever, and the feelings and hopes of that period have passed away also, or are greatly changed.

Now, what he does, after that kind of melancholy opening, he gives a list of reflections that older people, especially older Christians, seeing it through the lens of Scripture, he gives a list of what he calls weighty reflections that come to the mind of older believers, but don't generally kind of haunt the mind of a young believer, and so I'll just run through them real quickly with you.

He says, we know in our old age that the longer our life is, the shorter it seems in retrospect.

In other words, it's the same thing that every grandparent tells the grandchild, that when you're my age, you'll understand that life passes by so quickly.

He even says that when we were children, time seemed to creep along, and the idea of being, you know, moving from a child to an adult, he said, oh, it seemed unbearably long, but that's not the way it looks when you're older.

In fact, he says, for the older believer, time seems to pass more quickly each year, so it's not just that I look back and my life seems short, it's every year seems to be shorter.

Of course, when we look at our calendars, he says, we know that there's been no change in time, but our personal perception of it is shifting, and so he presses them with this point, that your future years, your future months, they will pass more quickly in your perception than any year or month prior, so it is important for the believer to be careful with how we use these years.

He says this, old age, though its approach is gradual, seems to come on us suddenly, and he said we look in the mirror and we're shocked to see how our body is showing this age, and then he says, you know, we tend to forget that as we're growing old, and we, you know, maybe at the beginning of what we would consider, you know, an elderly, the elderly stage of life, where we're noticing that physically or mentally we're not able to do as much, we don't have as much energy as we did when we were young, and yet we're not quite used to it yet, so we volunteer to do things that we don't really have the ability or strength to do any longer, and our bodies and our minds make us pull back.

Then he talks about another weighty reflection, the loss of friends and family that we grew up with.

As they age, if you live longer than them, then you look around and you realize there are very few that you still see from your childhood or your young adult life, and that's a very sobering thing, and it can also create in a person a sense of being, you know, kind of adrift.

Our parents, our grandparents are gone, our parents are gone, our siblings are gone, maybe our spouse is gone, maybe you've lived long enough to, sadly, to bury some of your children, and you begin to look around and those people that really formed the, you know, the company that you lived among all those years are gone, and you can feel like you're a ship with no anchor, and you are kind of alone and adrift, and it can feel very lonely when you look around, and the kind, younger people in church, you know, the young families, and you know that they're kind to you, and you love them, but they don't know the world you grew up in.

They don't know the people that you would tell stories about, and so it can be very isolating.

He says if your friends and family are still alive, and they are old like you, then sometimes it's alarming when we look at them, and they are so changed.

We remember them when they were young and, you know, playing with us at school, or we remember them when they got married, and we remember them when they had their children, or when they had their first grandchildren, but now time has ravaged their bodies.

They're weak, and that energy and that glow, perhaps, is gone, and that's sobering.

Or, he said, much more sobering is when we have friends or family that we've grown up with, and they're old, and we're old, and we see the changes in their, you know, in their body, and their abilities, their minds, perhaps, but much more alarming is how many of them may have walked away from Christ, or slowed their pace in walking with God to such a degree that it's heartbreaking, and when you see them, you are reminded of earlier days where they appeared to love the

Lord, and they were involved in the church, but now, for whatever reason, because of sorrows, or disappointments, or because they never really did love the

Lord, you see that they have, in a sense, turned their back on the things that you, as a believer, still hold to be life and death.

He says, of course, those that grow old with us and who still walk with the Lord, they are a rare and precious joy, not just to their older friends, but to the whole church.

We see in them, you know, the mixture of wisdom, and of a softened loving heart, of patience, but also of faithfulness, of clear views of the importance of spiritual things, of a lively heart, even if the body has forced them to slow down, and they are a real treasure in the church.

Then he comes to his last recollection that elderly people often have, and that is the most bitter, and it is the recollection of your past failures, of your sins that you committed, people you hurt, and maybe they're no longer alive, you can't make it right, it's too late, of duties that you omitted, you didn't do, or we could say the wasted and neglected opportunities, the years that passed by, and you were unconcerned, unaware of what good might be done that would have an everlasting impact.

So we look back and we see years that we've squandered, sins that we've committed, people that we've hurt, the failures that we have as parents, or grandparents, or friends, or Christians, or church members.

And he said, sometimes we foolishly tell ourselves, if I could go back in time, not that we would really want to relive all of those difficult years, but if I could go back knowing what

I know now as a Christian, I would live so differently.

I wouldn't waste the years, I wouldn't neglect the opportunities, I wouldn't commit those sins. And Alexander, you know, turns and becomes the pastor at this point, and he says, much of that thinking is pure foolishness.

And he asks them to test themselves. Ask yourselves, are you now availing yourself of all the advantages and all the opportunities to devote your hours to God and to do good to others?

Is that what you're doing right now? In your older years? If you're not doing it right now, he says, why do you think if you could get in a time machine and go back, that you would do any differently?

You would waste the years again. You would neglect the opportunities. You would probably commit the same sins.

Of course, maybe we would avoid some of the more life -wrecking choices, but Alexander says, it's futile to sit and think, if I could go back, oh,

I would do it different, if you aren't doing it differently right now.

Now, he gives counsel to those who look back, and they see the bitter reality of sin, and of how it's impacted people they genuinely love, and the fact that they can't go back, and he gives them some comforting, solid counsel.

And he mentions a number of things. Number one, he says, lay aside the fruitless, futile wishes and regrets.

What good does it do to sit around thinking about the good old days, or the things that you failed in, and, you know, it just paralyzes you now.

So set that aside. Second, he says, but do take an honest look at your life, and what you did, and how you spent your time, and how you formed friendships, and how you were in your home, or at the workplace, or how you were involved with your church.

And if there are sins that need to still be repented of, he says, break your heart over these sins, and genuinely repent, and make sure it's a godly sorrow, and not a repentance that one day needs to be repented of.

You know, not that kind of self -centered, self -pity, which looks like religious sorrow, but it has really nothing to do with love to God.

So let there be a God -centered, broken -heartedness, where you lay these memories of failure at the cross of Christ, and you receive from him full and perfect forgiveness.

Then he goes on to say next, do not let yourself give in to despair or despondency, and the only cure for that is to trust

God's Word, and to trust God. So he's speaking again to a Christian. Go back to God's Word.

What does he say? You're going to have to live on that, and that's number four. You're going to have to live by faith, not on your feelings this morning, not on what you think tomorrow will bring, and the fears and the insecurities.

You're going to have to live on what the Scripture says about the character of your God, that he has now become not just your

King and your Savior, but your friend, your Father. You're going to have to think about the work of God, and you're going to have to be clear and remind yourself of this over and over.

Put Christ on in your thoughts. Christ for you. What did he do?

Christ in you. What is the Spirit still doing in your rescue? If your closest loved ones are gone, or if they've turned from Christ, if your earthly wealth has dried up and you don't know how you're going to pay, you know, next month's bills, if your health is taken from you by time, he says, think on what you have as a true

Christian in Christ. God, who will never leave you nor forsake you, is still true to you.

God cannot die like friends. God cannot change like friends. God cannot dry up like your retirement account.

God cannot be taken from you. If you have God, he says, and you're a true

Christian, and it's not just religious words, you have life in the fullest.

You have everything. So he says, why don't you take your words and your thoughts, not from the accusing enemy who comes along and whispers to us that there's nothing left for us in life now.

We're older. The church doesn't need us. The people don't need us. What could we do anyway?

And, you know, and the fears and the what -ifs that haunt you at night, he says, put away those words.

Why not take words from Scripture like those from the book of Habakkuk? And he just gives one example in verse 17 and 18 and 19, where Habakkuk says in that very dark time, though the fig tree should not blossom and there be no fruit on the vines, though the yield of the olive should fail and the fields produce no food, though the flock should be cut off from the fold and there be no cattle in the stalls, yet I will exalt in the

Lord. I will rejoice in the God of my salvation. The Lord God is my strength and he has made my feet like hinds feet and makes me walk on my high places.

So, Alexander encourages them, you're going to have to live by faith on what

God says and who he is. The next counsel he gives is you need to be active in the kingdom.

It is not a time to quit laboring for the honor of Christ and the good of other souls.

If you're still in this physical body, in this physical world, you still have work to do.

Of course, a lot we can't do, but set aside the self -pity and take up what you can do.

So, you can pray, perhaps you can write a letter, make a phone call, we could say today.

You can speak a word to those that do come and visit, or that you're still able to go visit.

If you're able to gather with believers at church, go. Even if it's difficult for you, it's a lot of work, or maybe you have trouble hearing people or understanding.

Maybe your church, if we were to apply it today, maybe the style of worship has shifted since you were young.

It's not that the style you would have preferred, but instead of going and complaining, why not use each day that God is still giving you to point people to the

Christ of Scripture, to be an encouragement to the young pastor in a biblical way, to help him see the highest and best path for a pastor, to give him the best books, to really labor in prayer.

Finally, he says, daily put to death the corrosive fears that so often plague old age.

And I've mentioned these already, but a sense of insecurity, of loneliness, of the fact that you have no value or no purpose.

If you hoped in the past that money, or a job, or a spouse, or children, or grandchildren, or close friends at church would be your constant support through life, and these have been taken away from you, why not turn your heart to God, who should have been the foundation from the beginning?

Of course the Lord uses these other things, these other relationships, and there's nothing wrong with that, for being thankful for that, and appreciating that it's

God who is giving you a spouse, or finances to pay the bills, or grandchildren, or children, or health, or time.

But it is God himself that has to be the foundation of a life that puts to death the liar's fears.

And so he mentions, be careful for nothing, but in everything, you know, in everything, devoting ourselves to Christ, trusting

Him. Or verses like, the peace of God which passes understanding will guard our hearts.

So study, he says. Don't stop just because you're old. Study the

Bible. We could say, study it as if you've never read it before. Pray. Make frequent use of the opening, of the access you have between you and the living

God, in the throne room of heaven. Let there be a well -beaten path to the mercy seat in your soul.

Don't stop just because you've gotten older. And live content, so that younger believers who see your life, and it may be a very difficult life, they see a contentment that comes only from living on the fullness of Christ.

And they'll never be able to forget the truths that they saw in you.

So, good reminder as the opening letter from Archibald Alexander.